Jiyū Ishi: To Believe
by PreciousCosmos
Summary: While the Bronzes recover after their victory against Lucifer, Hyoga contemplates the tragedies his evolution as a Saint brought to his life and grows a little closer to Shun. Part 2 of the Jiyū Ishi series


Hyoga felt far too burned out to be sitting in a stiff hospital chair just waiting around. He needed rest. If someone had told him ten years ago he would end up fighting the damned devil and his fallen angels last night, he could've laughed, or probably cowered under the bed clutching his mother's rosary if they were being serious. He'd been afraid of the monsters in the Bible when he was small. But besides that...

He leaned a little on his propped hand and rubbed his aching head, sighing in deep frustration with himself.

_Mama._

When would fighting his loved ones just stop? With his own hands, he'd had to defeat an image of her, one that spoke to him. If it hadn't been for Shun calling out to him, reminding him of who was still alive, he wouldn't be here now waiting for hours on news of everyone's health. Always bringing him back to the world of the living, that Andromeda Saint.

"Seiya, please, you'll make yourself sick again."

He looked up, letting his hand fall and join the other in his lap.

On the other side of the room, Seiya, unlike Shiryu, wasn't letting himself get the rest he needed. He kept shifting around restlessly as though fighting phantoms. Saori, sitting on the bed with him, gently touched his chest so that he would lie still. The sight of her with heavy stitching visible on her arms and a heating blanket draped over her shoulders left Hyoga feeling helpless, even ashamed. Her life had been saved, but they failed to spare their goddess the pain only her soldiers should bear. Thankfully however, her divine cosmos had already worked to replenish the blood she lost while Seiya lied there getting a transfusion for the second time in as many days.

The Saints' cosmos was such a powerful release of energy that for some it could keep them fighting even if limbs were lost and every bone broken. But after a battle? Well, then it was almost no better than an adrenaline rush. Hyoga and his friends found themselves in a hospital together increasingly more often.

"Hey, Seiya, you're stressing out Saori-san," Hyoga said, a bite in his voice he didn't mean to have. She smiled at him as she massaged Seiya's chest.

"Mmssorry..." Seiya mumbled. He seemed to force himself into a fitful sleep while Shiryu continued undisturbed, the drugs he'd been given keeping him under.

Ikki had only given the nurses enough time to patch up the worst of his injuries before he'd shoved them off and disappeared somewhere down the hall. Hyoga was almost certain he wouldn't leave just yet, though. One of them was still unaccounted for.

Shun and Shiryu had been taken to separate surgeries at the same time, and as the surgeons told Saori afterwards, Shiryu was a little better off with his internal organs managing to escape with only abrasions and bleeding they got under control. But no word on Shun had come yet. All any of them knew was that his opponent's final attack had scraped his heart and pierced the lung behind it. He'd had worse and was surely fine, but like with Mama and the rest, somehow Shun's heart was always the target.

Hyoga noticed his tightly clenched fists.

He couldn't sit anymore thinking about it. He'd just stepped out of the room when their doctor striding down the hall caught his eye. He raised his eyebrows in an expression of expectant hope, which the familiar man responded to with a nod and smile.

* * *

Knocking on the door frame, he saw Shun lying on his side, breathing mask on his face again and a thin tube stuck between his ribs. Ikki sat in a chair beside his bed. "Hyoga," he said with a bright grin. His brother reached across and squeezed his wrist. Though a brief touch, Hyoga didn't miss the tension in his bones. In a quick, fluid motion, he stood and headed towards the door. Hyoga stepped aside, but Ikki stopped long enough to pat his shoulder.

The memory of Ikki dashing past him as he'd tried to push himself off the ground flashed in his mind. _"Where's Shun?"_ he'd gritted out.

Ikki had stopped, Phoenix feathers writhing in the wind. _"He fell behind."_

But then, like now, he was gone. Hyoga replaced him in the seat and looked after the door. "Off already. What do you think he does all the time?" he asked, sarcastically adding, "Must be important." He knew he had no right to say it, guilt for projecting stabbing his mind, but it felt easier than dealing with his own problems at the moment, so he shoved it deep down where everything else he felt resided.

Shun nestled his head more comfortably into his pillow, saying, "There's a lot Nii-san has to do with his time. We don't have much to start with, so he's got to do his best while he has it. It's alright." Settled, he gave Hyoga an innocent smile as if he thought he'd been clever when instead his tiredness caused him to fail at hiding his real feelings.

Hyoga searched his cloudy eyes and resisted the urge to roll his own. "Do you really believe that?"

With scrunched eyebrows, Shun made a questioning sound.

"That he's doing his best?" Hyoga leaned forward, hanging his clasped hands below his knees.

Shun suddenly wanted to look everywhere but Hyoga in the eye. After a moment's consideration, he said, "He's right. If I could just get stronger... I wouldn't end up in situations where he always has to save me―" A short cough interrupted him. "I... would be better able to serve Athena. And maybe Seiya wouldn't have had to shoot at her if you and Nii-san didn't need to waste time with me. If you didn't come back for me. You'd all have one less problem to– to worry about and―" Though he wanted to continue, the cough returned a little more harshly.

Hyoga sighed, "Maybe." He stared down at a white tile on the floor, its old hairline cracks reminding him of fracturing ice. "But despite all that, he's still wrong. Family should stay together for as long as they can."

A world ever spinning came with a high cost.

They had started out defeating Saints far stronger than the five of them, defending Athena when all the others tried to kill her. After that, not even gods and devils could oppose them. But he knew Shun. Those experiences were not something he was proud of, and Hyoga of all people could understand that. God knew he would never forgive himself for Isaac and Camus.

He couldn't leave anyone behind again. Not Shun. Not any of them.

He pressed his hand into his left eye, throbbing in time to the heartbeat hammering in his ears.

"Hyoga?"

Shun addressing him pulled him back upright. He hadn't noticed his vision blurring.

"You're exhausted," he said. "Here." Without a second thought, he untangled his arms to grip the edge of the bed and carefully pull himself closer to it.

Hyoga, too tired to argue, made his way around to the open side and lied down, lacing his fingers together across his chest. The two took comfort in a companionable quiet for a few minutes. He'd almost drifted off when Shun quietly said his name again.

Eyes still closed, he answered, "Hm?"

"Do you know the desk in my room at Saori-san's?"

"Mm."

"In the top drawer on the left, there's a pendant with the inscription 'Yours Ever.' Would it be too much trouble for you to bring it to me tomorrow?"

"It's no trouble, Shun. Without you, I'd be dead." He'd intended it as a casual assertion that Shun wasn't inconveniencing him, but something about it felt significant and simultaneously not quite right. Privately confused by his surprise, he stared up at the ceiling, brows scrunched.

Shun made a low, thoughtful sound like he understood what Hyoga meant but that it wasn't enough to satisfy the turmoil raging in his soul. Soon, his labored breathing softened into slumber.

Another few more minutes passed.

Hyoga's eyelids begged him to close, but he couldn't let go of the thought yet. He looked over, taking in the calming sight of green hair slipped behind an ear, of breath lifting ribs, and the soft pulsing Hyoga felt more than saw in his throat this close. Impulsive, he reached across his chest, his own heart pounding, and rested his hand tenderly on Shun's bare shoulder. "No... I think– I think I _would_ die."


End file.
